


Where the flowers go to die

by Stories_best_told



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cancer, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Greg Lestrade & John Watson Friendship, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Fluff, Lung Cancer, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Molly Hooper/Greg Lestrade, No Smut, POV John Watson, POV Lestrade, POV Molly Hooper, POV Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:30:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stories_best_told/pseuds/Stories_best_told
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were both just side affects of terminal illness. John kept to himself, fumbling his way through passive depression and lung cancer. Sherlock was a chancer, always assuming the world would change to fit him. He coaxed the strange, sullen blonde haired boy back into himself with shared morphine and inseparable lifelines, and in the short time they had, the made a lifetime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Under the skin

**Author's Note:**

> My first ao3 story!
> 
> John Watson has been suffering between cancer and depression for months now, knowing he is going to die and resigned to that fact. Until a new boy is emitted to his ward at the hospital. 
> 
> Rated mature because it has quite adult themes and though there's no smut (patience grasshoppers) it could quite possible make you cry...

Do you know the ironic thing about being depressed? Its not a state of mind, like all the doctors tell you. Its a physical being, something or someone that makes you feel like crying is the happiest thing you could possibly muster. You don't even realise its doing this to you, slowly breathing doubts into your mind, until you're at the hospital, every colour pill being forced down your throat until you can't even feel the weight of it all anymore, numb to the world.  
Its more of a sickness than the cancer ever is, and requires much more treatment. I suppose the truth is is that they've given up with trying to cure the tumour lurking under my skin, but Dr Lestrade is still adamant the rest of my life will be spent 'happy' and 'depression-free'. I don't understand that. Thats not how it works, I want to tell him, but I can't bring myself to break the news.   
4 months ago, when I arrived, my assigned room had been to white; white sheets, white curtains, white floor tiles, white noise. I'd grown to appreciated the way that, when the sun set, soft, golden light filtered in through the window and painted over every white surface, blanketing the room in a warm haze of molten gold. It was times like this - well, the only time really - that I wished I had a roommate.   
Mum always had to leave before the evening, to pick up Harry and take her home, but I had got to a point where it felt like my own little secret, a special moment I created and kept quiet. I suppose that really put into perspective how pathetically lonely my life is.   
John Watson. High school golden boy. On his way to Cambridge university. The boy to be. The boy to be with.   
The boy who got cancer. Who's hair was gone, stubbly and blonde over across his head, eyes dull and blue and tired, hidden under pretty eyelashes. The boy who will die before his 19th birthday. Two different lives, separated by a tumour growing in his lungs and white hospital walls.  
Laughing, head thrown and eyes blinded by the golden light, I think about life before I turned 18. I think about Mary and Mike and the football team and the application for uni sitting on my desk. The laugh morphs into a coughing fit in my mouth, stinging my throat and choking, tears burning in my eyes.   
I cry myself to sleep as the beautiful light slowly dies, dreaming in black and white and gold. When I wake up, dark light still spills through the curtains, the distant him of machines droning through the quiet.  
There's a boy in the bed opposite mine, under the window. Dark curls catch the moonlight, dappling the ends in a way that reminded me of diluted stars. I look at the boy, peaceful and soft in his sleep, for a second longer. Then I turn over, close my eyes and fall back asleep.


	2. Electricity on water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's POV. 
> 
> Sherlock Holmes. Enigmatic, mysterious and unbearable. He truly believed the world would adapt to suit him and thank him for his presence. But when he meets the strange, sullen boy with the pale blonde hair who dislikes him immediately, Sherlock feels inclined to... Well, change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is finished and I will try to post it all today! I was listening to 'you found me' by the fray when I wrote this, so that I suppose is its soundtrack!

Resigned. Yes, that's the word. I'm resigned to the fact that I'm ill. Granted, its hard to be anything other than numb or indifferent when your brain is slowly dying on you, but the word on the tip of my tongue is 'resigned'.   
After last weeks 'incident' at school, everyone spontaneously and simultaneously started being extra nice to me. Bastards. Planning to throw me into hospital for around the clock care in the bloody children's ward. Wait till I was drugged up and willing then leave me there once I fell asleep. Bastards.  
Waking up to pure white was a bit of a surprise: white beds, white floor, white skin on the boy in the bed opposite me. Yuck, I hate sick people...  
The sheets were far to hot and sticky across my legs, and the pillow full of lumps and crinkles. Kicking off the white duvet and heaving myself off the white bed, I looked at the window, open slightly, white curtain rustling. If I were to climb out and sit on the ledge for a fag, who would know? Certainly not the blonde boy drooling in his sleep, who I had already established was in for cancer in the lungs. Insensitive I know, to smoke around him, but he was fast asleep and what he doesn't know won't hurt him.   
The tiles - also white - stung my feet, so cold they almost felt wet, as I padded across the floor to the window, on the balls of my feet so not to make a sound. The window groaned, and only just opened wide enough for a small person to fit through. Thanking god for my slender torso, I slipped through onto the thin ledge, balancing on the balls of my feet and leaning back into the cool glass of the window. From my back pocket, I pulled out the hidden pack of cigarettes and put one in between my teeth, the lighter sparking against the pale sky, smoke curling upwards and stinging my eyes. I watched as light slowly bleeding through the night, warm despite the chill of the December morning when a rough, sleepy voice broke through the silence, surprising me so much I nearly jumped out of my own skin and off the building;   
"I could push you right out of the window, and no one would blame me." I turned over my shoulder, without moving my feet, and was met by such intense blue eyes, more like electricity than water. They literally burned with agitation and it took me a second to realise it was the same blonde haired boy I had seen earlier, sleeping so peacefully. His cheekbones jutted out dramatically when he spoke and even in illness, his skin had a golden, tanned tint to it. And his eyes, god, they really did burn.  
"What kind of arrogant bastard smokes, not only in a hospital, but in front of someone dying from cancer?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are enjoying it!  
> Talk to me, tell me what you like and don't?


	3. Dirty mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was growing increasingly hard for John not to kiss this intolerable boy who had wormed his way into Johns affections. It was growing harder and harder to keep himself locked away inside himself.

Sherlock Holmes was the most impossibly, frustratingly, insolently intelligent person I had ever met. And it was growing increasingly hard not to kiss him every time he smiled at his shoes, or looked down at me through his curls, or smirked at one of his nurses like he was in on a little secret.  
And most of the time, he did. He knew Nurse Linda and Doctor Jones had been sleeping together, despite the fact he had two STDs. When Sherlock had sniggered - eyes laughing across the room at me through thick eyelashes that looked like they'd been drawn in fine liner - looking her up and down as she lent over him to plug in his drip. After she left, he lent forward, whispering his deductions in my ear, and I nearly spat out my lungs I laughed so hard.   
Its funny, how hating someone is essentially one of the two ways of falling in love, alongside attraction. That morning when I saw him out on my windowsill, a cigarette drooping from between his lips whilst I choked myself out slowly.... I had never loathed another person more. But then he turned to me, eyes wide and sharp and gold around the middle, a smirk twisting his mouth and said 'wouldn't you if you could?'.   
I hadn't meant to spend the rest of my pitifully short life falling in love, but then he laughed, his whole body shaking and his smile cutting deep groves into his cheeks, and I blew it.   
Two weeks came and went with frosty mornings and golden evenings, and at first, we pretended to ignore each other, but then he'd start waking me up in the night if he couldn't sleep, and then he began telling me stuff about the nurses and doctors and then we started sharing our painkillers, because he always needed them more than me and then we just were. Roommates. Friends. Close. Everything I'd cut myself from when I'd been emitted.   
Waking up was always the most painful time of the day, my body aching and pain lacing up my spine, spewing shit into my useless lungs. I felt a sting probe into my arm, at first assuming it was a side affect of the treatment. Then I opened my eyes, and Sherlock was balanced on the edge of my bed, eyes squinting and tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration as he stabbed me in the crease of my under-elbow with a needle.  
"Sherlock? What the fu-"  
"Dont cuss, dirty mouth." He didn't look up to meet my frantic gaze, but a smirk played across his features, making my lips dry and any fight go out of me "I'm giving you my left over morphine. I had a bad night... They gave me as much as I wanted!" The light struck the right side of his face, casting delicate shadows across the left side. His cheekbones stuck out dramatically and he had the haunted look in his eyes he got when he thought I wasn't paying attention. Which I always was. He softened a bit and met my eyes, every shade just a bit lighter than green and darker than black in the pupils. He smiled. I fell in love with his shy smile, and the way he smelt of the liquorice his older brother Mycroft bought him every time he visited, and the way he fiddled with his sleeves when he said something he thought might be wrong "I noticed you were in pain... In the mornings. So I asked for... Well I asked for a fuck lot." He sighed, shaking slightly, like he was laughing but not quite amused.   
"Don't cuss, dirty mouth" I teased, putting my hand over his, where it balanced the needly on my arm. "Thank you." I whispered, just in case Nurse Linda came in and discovered me leeching Sherlocks morphine "But Sherlock, look pale. I don't want to take it from you. Not if you need it... I know we do, but... But I'm still not even sure what's wrong with you? Why woul-"  
"Enough." I stopped blabbering mindlessly, aware of Sherlocks hand tight around mine, his thumb stroking my palm almost absently, his face hard and beautiful cast in both light and darkness, like an angel fighting for the wrong side. Then he turned his head away from me, his eyes shadowed and the light catching the back of his head, turning his curls bronzed. He smiled, but it looked all wrong, like he was coiled so tight his mouth was twisting with tension. But he was smiling and his grip on my hand loosened and his eyes were still gold around the pupil "Don't worry about me. I'm grand."  
That was the thing about Sherlock Holmes. He had an answer for everything, but never answered anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're like it? Tell me which parts you do and don't?


	4. Butterfly kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How would you cope? How could you cope with falling in love so suddenly that your lungs give out and could you deal with loving someone more than being alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes sorry for breaking your eyes... This story will have a sort of happy ending... Well as happy as possible! Cue 'how to save a life' by the fray!
> 
> This chapter, I put who's POV it is because the narrations is shared and the next chapter will be the same

Johns POV: Molly Hooper found out she had pancreatic cancer 5 days ago. She moved into the Ward 3 days later. She had hair like caramel chocolate and warm eyes, lightened by gold eyelashes. Everything about her was soft and smudged, like she was all curves and smiles and when she stood close enough, you could smell sunshine and cinnamon. And it didn't matter that she had a little over a month left, and from our room, you could hear her crying at night, she held onto the laughter and never complained and shared her waffles with John I'm the morning. She was different to all the other cancer kids in the ward, like a silver lining among storm clouds... Until she ran out of morphine at around 2:37 am. It was nights like those when I would cough and wiggle and exaggerate my awakeness, until I heard Sherlock patter across the floor. Until I felt his body curl around mine and his hand hot on my hips. Neither of us fell asleep, but it was easier to focus on the tickle of Sherlocks breath on my neck and the stretch of his fingers on my lower back.   
Other nights it was better. Everything was quite and humming, and over the top the sound of Molly laughing in the next room. It was nights when her boyfriend, Greg, stayed over, making jokes and laughing when she did. The sound of them whispering together, a soft hum, like a nursery rhyme spoken over the drone of the machines, made me almost as sad as the tremble in my chest when she cried. It made was as the sound of secrets whispered over a pillow and the laugh that lovers share, a first kiss, a first night, a first child. All the firsts I would never had, a future that didn't exist. And on these nights, it was me that climbed in behind Sherlock, pressed my lips to his shoulder and wound myself around him, trying to get enough of him now, trying to make up for every touch we would loose and trying to trying to breathe in as much of him as possible, so it would be easier when I couldn't anymore.   
He would turn around, his thigh sliding between my legs, he fingers dancing over my shoulders. He would kiss my nose, or flutter his eyelashes over my cheeks.  
"A butterfly kiss." He whispered against my neck, his breath hot and his voice breathy. When he spoke, it was the sound of shattered promises. 

Sherlocks POV: falling in love with John had been like waking up. Like forgetting to fall asleep, forgetting when you closed your eyes, then everything suddenly being lighter and different and you wake up and you haven't changed, everything's just moved forward without you.   
It wasn't like he didn't remember the first time John kissed him; it was soft and cautious and just on the corner of his mouth. I remember the heat of his hands and how neither of us closed our eyes, I just wasn't the moment I fell for him. I fell painlessly, through a series of moments and never all at once. It wasn't always about me or him, it was a relief between bouts of chemotherapy, a joint account of morphine and the sound of crying.  
"John?" He mumbled something incoherent into my chest, the white sheets rustling as he arched his back.  
"Mm hm?"   
"Are you scared?" He slowly opened his eyes, blue and sleepy and darker in the middle.  
"Of what?" I couldn't bring myself to look at him, the heave of my chest rising him up and down and his chin balanced on my collarbone, looking up. "Of dying?"  
"Of me dying."   
He closed his eyes, the lack of blue tightening my throat, and ran his fingers over the wrong side of my chest, like he didn't want to feel the faintness of my heart.   
"Sherlock, I know you, that when you look at someone, you don't see their face or the status, and I don't think you see them for their strength or weakness. I think its a side affect to..." His cheek was too hot against my chest, and when I ran my hand across his forehead, he was sticky and burning, but his voice was strong and determined and I wanted to know. What the side affect was and whether we could stop it. So I let him carry on, taking my hand off his forehead. "...a side affect to cancer. We don't see people as faces or personalities. We see them as living or dying. And I held onto the way you saw me the same as I did, and its like I'm not afraid of being a person dying now, because so are you and if- when you or I go, promise each other that we will look in every shadow and nook on this earth and in every space between every star... Yes-" Blue eyes lit up and slightly delirious, he grasped my hands and kissed me hard and gently and clumsily, his lips lingering for a second before he pulled away, whispering now against my lips "yes, in between stars is where we'll be. Not enough time to shine, just enjoying the view of the brighter stars, burning away and unaware of their limitations."  
He closed his eyes and I felt every one of his muscles relax against me, curling around and stilling, and when he mumbled against my neck, it was almost as if he were already asleep. "I fell in love with the way time exists everywhere but around us, and its like the clocks hold their breath when he kiss. So how can I be afraid of you dying, when we never move out of this moment..."  
His mouth was slightly open, curving and rounder at his bottom lip. He didn't move, and his eyelashes fluttered once before closing. In the dark, he somehow looked smaller, cheekbones shadowing his face, his eyelids pale and eyelashes drooping. When I fluttered my own eyelashes against his cheek, kissing him like a butterfly, two things occurred to me. That was the first time John Watson ever admitted to loving me, and where my hand held his, his skin was cold. There was no pulse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, tell me if you enjoy this story, and please kudos if you do, I'm kinda new on here!


	5. An almost ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn't give up. He gave in. Molly recounts her final moments with the two boys on her way home. A silver lining to a grey cloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is a happy ending, or as happy as possible! Thanks for reading my story, and I hope you didn't cry too much!

Gregs POV: Molly's chemotherapy started to show positive responses, her hair almost covering her ears, still as soft as evening light under my fingers. She was allowed to come home, and I had no idea what that meant. Her father was non existent until he wanted to exist in her life, once every couple of years, and her mom dealt with this with the aid of therapeutic drinking. She wasn't legally capable of looking after a rehabilitating cancer kid, when she couldn't even rehabilitate herself. When the doctors had told me I was old enough to become a guardian, my first thought was of how messy my place was, and how I would have to clean everything away. My second thought was of Molly laughing at my thinking this. I knew I would be able to deal with the illness, even with the posttraumatic stress and all the medication. But sometimes, when she can't see me looking, she looks so lonely and lost, eyes clouded and face hollow, the sheer whiteness of the hospital glowing off her skin and bleaching all the colour from her cheeks, the pale shadows leaking off her and blanching the world. Molly was the sun, and I didn't know how else to describe her. But when she thought I couldn't see, she looked like a reflection in a puddle, distorted by raindrops. And all I could do was stroke circle on her palm or kiss the curve of her jaw or adjust her tubes, because I didn't know how to navigate this. Navigate her. Not since Sherlock died...

 

13 weeks earlier

 

Sherlocks POV: To say I gave up would be unfair. Insulting. I don't give up. To say I did would be am offence to all the times any of us fought it so hard. I'd like to say I gave in, that I would rather spend my time searching between stars than living in an empty space. The clocks were still holding their breath. John died of blood deprivation from the heart. I guess you could say his heart overloaded. If you had a sadistic sort of sense of humour. The days after his death were inevitably bland and leached of colour. Molly cried and Greg didn't seem to know what to do with himself. I couldn't seem to stop shaking, and when they took his bed out of our room, I slept on the floor. It was cold and uncomfortable and when I bled from my nose or ear, the red bloomed across the white tiles like wine on snow, and not once did I call for a nurse. A week after, I stopped asking for medication, refusing to acknowledge the pain in my chest, dismissing it as a broken heart. They knew I was dying, and if anyone gave up it was them. And if anyone didnt, it was Molly. Who would come and curl herself around him on the floor, not the same way John would, with exploring hands and cautious lips. No, but she would curve herself around my spine and press her cheek into the back of my neck, absorbing the silent shivers with her own. She was getting better and she knew I wasnt, she knew I was dying and when I told her to give my love to Greg, she told me to give hers to John, tell him she hopes to see him later rather than sooner.   
I died with my mind unclouded from drugs. With the pressure and heat of Molly's body soaked into my skin. I died and all the clocks simultaneously took a breath.   
I'd like to tell you that me and John are somewhere secret together, hiding between stars, watching them fondly as they burn away. But the real truth is that Molly nearly clawed the nurses eyes out when she tried to take my body away. Greg punched his fist through a wall, and Nurse Mary cried and shook Molly until they were both numb. Mycroft started smoking again, shutting himself away from my parents, who broke apart and wept at the funeral, after keeping it together for so long. The truth is no one knows what happens to us, they only know that we're not exactly gone when we're not here. They don't know what stars we hide between or whether we're together. And to tell you the truth, I don't think they care. I can't tell you either, because despite popular opinion, I don't like giving anyone the easy answers. All I can tell you is that I didn't die from cancer. It was on my own terms, and it almost hurt.  
Almost...

 

Molly's POV: Almost. Isn't it ththe most painful word. He was almost in love. He almost cared. They were almost happy. They almost made it.   
I was thinking about this with soft rock music in the background, Greg hand pocketing mine, the drone of the engine reassuring. Almost like the machines back at the hospital. I tucked my hair behind my ear, leaning my cheek against the cool glass of the car window, the world rushing past so quickly it was like a pallet of paints, all smudged together with gradients merging through the middle. There was so little white. Almost none.  
"Hey Mols? How are you feeling?" I could feel him looking at me, his charcoal eyes curious and cautious and I wanted to look back, because he was beautiful and safe and his mouth made me want to laugh and in this light, he wouldn't look washed out or tired, like he had in the hospital room. He would look alive and lit up and his fair would look like sun raindrop, lighter at the tips. I had forever to look at him like that. Maybe not everyone's forever, but more forever than I had a few months ago.  
But I couldn't look away from the colours. Not yet. Not while the sun was sinking over the skyline, sending orange shadows over the greens and blues and reds. I felt alive.   
"I'm fine. Really, incredibly fine."  
And I knew that he was smiling, even though I didn't look. He understood that fine was better than good right now, because it didn't come with expectations or false pretences. Fine was coping and out of hospital, and it was safe and careful.   
I knew he was smiling because I could hear it in his voice;  
"It's OK. We're OK." I smiled against the glass, squeezing his hand on the dashboard, and tried to focus on windows as we drove into Oundle - Greg's home town. People in windows, leading everyday lives and living everyday moments, a lifetime of moments that John and Sherlock had to cram into 3 months.   
I closed my eyes to stop the tears and focused on Greg's hand, Greg's voice;  
"We're almost home Molly." He soothed, turning the car slowly. I couldn't see what was around the bend, and suddenly I remembered Sherlock telling me how 'all the clocks held their breath'. Well, time was certainly on my side at that moment, with Greg's hand covering mine. I had plenty of it.   
And we were almost home.  
Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you enjoyed and didn't! I have an IG account called Stories_best_told and give that a check out! If you liked NY story, please give it a kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it, if you liked it tell me which parts you did and didn't and give it a kudos, cause that would be grand.


End file.
